Research

Keith Cheverst: Investigating the Shared Curation of Locative Media relating to the Local History of a Rural Community

Abstract

In this talk I will present experiences and insights from our studies involving locative media, local history and community. Our work in the village of Wray has involved the longitudinal and ‘in the wild’ deployment of ‘digital noticeboard’ displays (conceived as technology probes) that support the sharing of photos/images. A significant portion of the submitted photo content relates to Wray’s local history and features of Wray’s landscape. Residents of the village have helped shape the system through involvement in co-design workshops. A key motivation of our current studies (as part of the SHARC project) is to explore issues around the co-curation of locative media experiences. A field trial (involving both residents and visitors) and a design workshop revealed both opportunities and challenges for the co-curation approach.

Bio

Dr Keith Cheverst is a Reader in HCI at Lancaster University where he obtained his PhD in 1999. Keith has also held the position of visiting scientist at Newcastle University’s Culture Lab, at Microsoft Research, Cambridge (working with the Socio-Digital systems group), and at the University of Melbourne (Department of Computing and Information Systems).

Keith’s primary research focus is in exploring the obdurate problems associated with the user-centered design of interactive systems in complex or semi-wild settings and the deployment and longitudinal study of these systems in order to gain insights into issues of user adoption and appropriation. He is particularly interested in the design interactive systems that feature locative media and associated mobile/pervasive technologies

Event details

  • When: 5th April 2016 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Cole 1.33a
  • Series: School Seminar Series
  • Format: Seminar

WWWho do you trust?

john_heenan_experiment

 

Who do you trust online?

Come and help us to work out how you decide to trust web sites!

You will need to complete a computer-based survey (in the Physics Library or in the School of Computer Science) in which you will rate how you perceive the trustworthiness of several websites.

Total participation time is less than 15 minutes.

At the end of the survey you can be entered into a prize draw for one of three Amazon or iTunes vouchers.

Volunteers have to be at least 18 years of age.

After the study, all volunteers will be sent a briefing on how they can improve their online security.

Please email John (jcbh@st-andrews.ac.uk) if you wish to take part or have any further questions.

Contact details:
Researcher: John Heenan
E-mail: jcbh@st-andrews.ac.uk

Supervisor: Professor Saleem Bhatti
E-mail: saleem@st-andrews.ac.uk

UTREC approval code: CS11909

 

Seminar: “Data Exploration on Smart watches” by Dr Rachel Menzies

rachel menzies

Abstract:

For many of us, interacting with data on mobile devices such as phones and tablets is commonplace in our lives, e.g. phone call data, TV guide, maps, fitness and wearable data. With the introduction of smart watches, the screen size of mobile devices has dramatically decreased. This reduction in screen real estate provides challenges for the design of interfaces, including the presentation and exploration of data visualisations. Using bar charts as an example, this presentation will explore the shortcomings of current zooming techniques on very small screens and consider proposed guidelines for the development of simple data exploration applications. Key design features such as the need for overview and context will be considered in respect to a simple and effective data exploration task.

 

Biography:

Rachel Menzies is a lecturer and Head of Undergraduate Studies (Computing) at the School of Science and Engineering at the University of Dundee. Her research interests include user centred design with marginalised user groups, such as users with disabilities, as well as exploring novel interfaces, data visualisation and CS education. Rachel is an Accessibility and Usability Consultant with the Human Centred Computing Consultancy, run by the University of Dundee, and has worked for many large international clients as well as providing bespoke training sessions to small companies.

Event details

  • When: 23rd February 2016 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Cole 1.33
  • Series: School Seminar Series
  • Format: Seminar, Talk

Distinguished Lecture Series: ‘CS for All’ by President Maria Klawe

The School of Computer Science is delighted to announce that President Maria Klawe will be speaking at our Distinguished Lecture Series on March 31st 2016 in St Andrews. This event will consist of a series of talks from 9am with a tea/coffee break, a lunch break, afternoon talk and Q&A session. Maria Klawe2

Biography

Maria Klawe became Harvey Mudd College’s fifth president in 2006. She joined Harvey Mudd from Princeton University after serving 14 years at the University of British Columbia. Prior to UBC, Klawe spent eight years with IBM Research in California and two years at the University of Toronto. She received her PhD (1977) and BSc (1973) in mathematics from the University of Alberta. In addition to numerous other commitments, Klawe is a member of the boards of Microsoft Corporation, Broadcom Corporation and the nonprofit Math for America and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Distinguished Lecture Series

Lecture 1 starting at 09:00hrs: Computing for all in K-12 education

Lecture 2 starting at 11:00hrs:  Computing for all in undergraduate education

Lecture 3 starting at 14:00hrs: Computing for all in research

There will be a Q & A session between 15:00hrs and 15:30hrs, followed by the opportunity to meet President Klawe informally in the foyer.

Event details

  • When: 31st March 2016 09:00 - 16:00
  • Where: Byre Theatre
  • Series: Distinguished Lectures Series
  • Format: Distinguished lecture

Palimpsest recognised by British Library Labs

A new annual competition set up to identify outstanding and innovative work, created using the British Library’s digital collections and content, has recognised Palimpsest. The 2015 British Library Labs Awards honoured projects within three key categories: Research, Creative/Artistic and Entrepreneurship. Palimpsest: Telling Edinburgh’s Stories with Maps, was runner up in the Research category.

pset

Congratulations to Uta, David and Aaron on the continued success of Palimpsest.

IEEE talks: JEEVES and the Speculative W@nderverse

In October 2015 we attended two IEEE conferences in the USA. Daniel Rough presented a full paper at the IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing, October 18–22, in Atlanta, Georgia. Uta Hinrichs presented a full paper at the IEEE Information Visualization (InfoVis) conference as part of VizWeek, October 25-30 in Chicago, Illinois. You can find details of these and all our papers on the publications page.

On November 10th, Daniel and Uta will reprise their talks here in St Andrews and everyone is welcome to attend. You can find the details for the two talks below along with links to the papers via the University of St Andrews research portal.

Talk 1 by Daniel Rough
Title: Jeeves – A Visual Programming Environment for Mobile Experience Sampling
Authors: Rough, D and Quigley, A.

Abstract: The Experience Sampling Method (ESM) captures participants’ thoughts and feelings in their everyday environments. Mobile and wearable technologies afford us opportunities to reach people using ESM in varying contexts. However, a lack of programming knowledge often hinders researchers in creating ESM applications. In practice, they rely on specialised tools for app creation. Our initial review of these tools indicates that most are expensive commercial services, and none utilise the full potential of sensors for creating context-aware applications.

We present “Jeeves”, a visual language to facilitate ESM application creation. Inspired by successful visual languages in literature, our block-based notation enables researchers to visually construct ESM study specifications. We demonstrate its applicability by replicating existing ESM studies found in medical and psychology literature. Our preliminary study with 20 participants demonstrates that both non-programmers and programmers are able to successfully utilise Jeeves. We discuss future work in extending Jeeves with alternative mobile technologies.

Paper details from the St Andrews Research Portal: Rough, DJ & Quigley, AJ 2015, ‘ Jeeves – a visual programming environment for mobile experience sampling ‘, IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC), Atlanta, United States

 

Talk 2 by Uta Hinrichs

Title: Speculative Practices: Utilizing InfoVis to Explore Untapped Literary Collections

Authors:
Hinrichs, U.,  Forlini, S. ; Moynihan, B.
Abstract:
In this paper we exemplify how information visualization supports speculative thinking, hypotheses testing, and preliminary interpretation processes as part of literary research. While InfoVis has become a buzz topic in the digital humanities, skepticism remains about how effectively it integrates into and expands on traditional humanities research approaches. From an InfoVis perspective, we lack case studies that show the specific design challenges that make literary studies and humanities research at large a unique application area for information visualization. We examine these questions through our case study of the Speculative W@nderverse, a visualization tool that was designed to enable the analysis and exploration of an untapped literary collection consisting of thousands of science fiction short stories. We present the results of two empirical studies that involved general-interest readers and literary scholars who used the evolving visualization prototype as part of their research for over a year. Our findings suggest a design space for visualizing literary collections that is defined by (1) their academic and public relevance, (2) the tension between qualitative vs. quantitative methods of interpretation, (3) result- vs. process-driven approaches to InfoVis, and (4) the unique material and visual qualities of cultural collections. Through the Speculative W@nderverse we demonstrate how visualization can bridge these sometimes contradictory perspectives by cultivating curiosity and providing entry points into literary collections while, at the same time, supporting multiple aspects of humanities research processes.

Published in:
IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics,  (Vol:22, Issue: 1 )  Page(s): 429 – 438
ISSN :  1077-2626
DOI:     10.1109/TVCG.2015.2467452

Paper details from the St Andrews Research Portal:
Hinrichs, U, Forlini, S & Moynihan, B 2015, ‘ Speculative practices: utilizing InfoVis to explore untapped literary collections ‘ IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics .

Event details

  • When: 10th November 2015 14:00 - 15:00
  • Where: Cole 1.33a
  • Format: Talk